The Application Of Functionalist Approaches To Poetry Translation

This thesis is an attempt to approach poetry translation and translation criticism by means of German functionalist approaches. By illustrating and clarifying functionalist theory, and scrutinizing it in translation criticism, the author of this thesis argues that functionalist approaches can and should be applied to poetry translation criticism and guide translation practices.Different from traditional translation theories, functionalist approaches to translation attach much importance to the dynamic translation process and propose“adequacy”, as compared with“equivalence”in traditional translation theories approaching translation from a linguistic perspective, as the criterion of translation criticism. Based on action theory, functionalist approaches consider translation to be a purposeful cross-cultural activity for which the most important of all is whether the expected function of the translation is achieved. However, functionalist approaches receive criticism from its very establishment, especially when literary translation is concerned, for many scholars are stuck in the idea that literary translation barely has any intention and thus the translators of literary works may have no choice other than to transplant the messages of the source text into the target text while retaining the information in the source text to the maximum degree.Adopting the essence of functionalist approaches, the thesis observes that different translators may have different interpretations to the same text, and that different readers of the target text may expect and demand differently, which accounts for diversified translation versions of the same source text. Besides, many other factors may also influence the translation process in which the translator, as the reader of the source text, the expert in conducting the translating activity and the mediator among the initiator, the target text reader and himself, plays a crucial part. The translation process is a complex dynamic process rather than merely a static text-to-text one. This is especially true with poetry translation because of the unique characteristics of poetry and poetry translation. It is based on these presuppositions that the author of this thesis argues that a more descriptive attitude should be adopted in poetry translation and translation criticism.The thesis analyzes the four English translation versions of a classical Chinese poem“Shengshengman”in the light of German functionalist approaches to translation by taking the translation brief as the guiding principle in poetry translation and adequacy as the criterion of translation criticism. It claims that it goes no point to judge which translated version is superior than the other through traditional“faults picking”approaches and casual evaluations based on the critic’s experience and sentiment to translation criticism, and that it might be more meaningful if we explore and understand what the circumstances are like and what makes the translated version to be what it is. In other words, attention should also be paid to the dynamic translation process while evaluating the translation result.